Management: Mutual Antipathy

While the names of Maxey Jarman and
Walter Hoving are hardly household words in the U.S., both men can lay
claim to being top merchandisers. And they are now putting on a show
making obvious the fact that they have just about as thorough a dislike
for each other as exists anywhere in American business.

Jarman, 61, a Baptist deacon and collector of nonobjective painting,
built his father's Nashville, Tenn., shoemaking firm into a $760
million-a-year shoe-and-clothing combine called Genesco Inc. As
chairman, he controls some 1,500 retail outlets grouped under 50 firms,...